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’William Tell’ shot in Italy, despite being about the Swiss national hero
The Swiss film industry has joined forces to call for the introduction of an incentive scheme to attract international productions to shoot in the country.
Writing to the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research, the industry alliance Cinéconomie said an initial $50m (CHF40m) should be earmarked for a film incentive scheme as part of the Federal Government’s four-year programme from 2028-31 to support Switzerland’s economic competitiveness and future prosperity through the national tourism marketing organisation Switzerland Tourism.
“Switzerland remains the only country in Central Europe that, to this day, has no concrete system in place to encourage foreign producers to use Switzerland as a filming location,” stated the alliance, which includes the Swiss Film Producers’ Association FFP, Switzerland Film Commission and the Association of Swiss Technical Industries for Film, Video and Sound (FTB/ASITIS) and partners such as Hotellerie Suisse and GastroSuisse.
“When (international projects) are filmed and/or produced in Switzerland, a wide variety of economic sectors – as well as the local industry – benefit,” it added.
“Money flows into domestic services, skilled labour and the film infrastructure and, as a result, numerous hotels that would otherwise stand empty in the off-season benefit from providing accommodation for several days to an international film crew. At the same time, films and series shot in Switzerland promote our country around the world and shape Switzerland’s image.”
The extent to which the Swiss film industry is losing out to competition from other production hubs offering attractive incentives was illustrated by the example of William Tell,UK director Nick Hamm’s screen version of the life of the Swiss national hero.
With a budget of more than $50m (CHF40m) and starring Danish actor Claes Bang as Tell, the film was shot on location in the Italian province of South Tyrol in autumn 2023 with $460,000 (€400,000) funding coming from the IDM regional fund. Italy’s 40% tax credit resulted in the settings in the town of Altdorf, where Tell famously shot an apple from his son’s head, being recreated in Rome’s legendary Cinecitta studios rather than in the original locations in the Swiss canton of Uri.
Switzerland only offers the Film Investment Refund Switzerland (PICS) cash rebate scheme on a national level, as administered by the Federal Office of Culture in Berne.
With an annual budget of $7.4m (CHF6m) and a cap of $740,000 (CHF600,000) per project, PICS is only open to applications from independent Swiss production companies and projects must be recognised as official Swiss co-productions.
A purely foreign service shoot with no Swiss co-producer would not qualify for this rebate on its own.
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